


Mormor Advent Challenge 2020 Day 3: Cinnamon

by RueRambunctious



Series: Mormor Advent Challenge 2020 [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Shoebox Zoo, Sort Of, Tiger Sebastian Moran, Young Jim Moriarty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27937692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RueRambunctious/pseuds/RueRambunctious
Summary: A young Jim finds a peculiar figurine. It seems uncannily alive.
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty
Series: Mormor Advent Challenge 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044660
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Mormor Advent Challenge 2020 Day 3: Cinnamon

The box was on his doorstep when Jim returned home from school.

There was no postmark, addressee, or note attached. Jim regarded the thing suspiciously, but surely the boys from school wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a booby-trapped prank where his father could be irritated by it; the entire neighbourhood’s youth knew to keep well away from Mr Brook and his swift ire whenever possible.

It was an old box, shabby but ornate. It was no secret that the Brooks were dirt poor ever since Jim’s mother had died and Mr Brook had taken to drinking more than working. As such, the household was one of those typically in receipt of a charitable box of seasonal goodies from do-gooders who cringed at the thought of tiny Jim Brook having no annual presents, tree or Christmas dinner, but who equally made no effort to improve his lot at any point during the rest of the year.

This did not resemble such a box. It was bereft of faux-cheerful wrapping or any condescending tidings of goodwill.

Jim warily checked his surroundings before stepping past the box to unlock his front door. The house was quiet.

Jim allowed himself a brief moment of relief even though it was rare that his father would be home at this time of day. It was safe enough for now.

Jim craned his neck to look back at the wooden box he had stepped over. Prank or not, his curiosity was abuzz with its presence. There wasn’t much better to occupy him today. The library was closed early (not enough funding to be open more than half days during the week), his assigned homework was uninspiring and almost finished besides, and there wasn’t much mischief that was worth being outside in the cold for at this time of year. 

Jim turned and nudged the box warily with his foot. Nothing untoward happened, so he risked coming closer.

He couldn’t hear tell-tale giggling from behind the hedgerows which surrounded the row of miners’ cottages… or anything else to suggest he was not alone with the box. It was rather too good to be used as bait, Jim supposed idly. It was weathered with age, certainly, but looked to have been built by expensive craftmanship once. None of the neighbourhood families would likely be happy if such a box was missing from their belongings.

Unless that was the point? The box itself was the trap, because if Jim was found to have it then he could be framed as a thief?

Jim lightly kicked the lid of the box aside.

Frowning, he crouched at once to better eye its contents: a figurine. Something about its appearance was so captivating Jim pushed aside his caution; he reached inside the box and drew the beautiful object out.

Vivid as cinnamon and darkly striped, Jim felt his insides quiver with something he could not explain as he handled the ornate thing. He’d never seen something so exquis-

Oh. As Jim turned over the exotic animal figure in his hands he noticed it was damaged quite badly. There were parallel flaws along the animal’s stomach and deep, chipped-edge gouges across one eye and ever so slightly across the animal’s muzzle.

Jim’s fingers travelled the damage with mildly sorrowful curiosity. What a wasteful treatment of something that had evidently been made by an adroit master of likely a dead skillset. Jim had visited a lot of museums (they were free, and educational, and usually devoid of school bullies) but had never seen anything like this. 

Still, Jim thought with a sliver of hope, it was possible no one might want a broken ornament back?

He was already feeling a strong reluctance to return the lovely, broken figurine to its rightful owner. Perhaps they did not deserve it; they’d mishandled him so. For the figure was a boy, it was easy enough to tell by the shape of the thing, although Jim sort of felt he already knew the fact before looking.

The animal had a presence, of sorts, that somewhat belied its inanimate state. Perhaps this was the work of the eyes: they were cut from red and gold tiger’s eye both, with the triangular pupils a mixture of glossy black jet, hematite, and shimmering cat’s eye. They had a life of their own, and seemed to regard Jim with a regal interest of their own as he ran his fingers reverently over the broken creature.

There were no fragments of the break within the box; Jim dipped down to check with interest.

His mind was already made up; he knew this as his fingertips skimmed the box’s depths. Carefully, Jim bundled the animal back into its box and smuggled the mysterious things into the house, locking the door behind himself.

He would have to be careful where he hid the mystifying box and its lovely contents. 

Jim ran through to his bedroom and checked the time edgily as he threw his schoolbag down. He had time. Plenty of time before his father came come.

Jim was no stranger to hiding things, least of all from his father and his destructive rages. If anyone was going to frame Jim for stealing his new belongings they would have to find them first!

Jim had no intention of making that easy. He eyed his two most secret hiding places and contemplated them. There was a hole that his father had kicked in the thin wall that Jim had craftily ‘mended’ creating a viable space where the box might sit undisturbed.

There was also a hollow (a number of them actually) between the beam above Jim’s bed and the warped, old ceiling. They wouldn’t fit the box, but they’d secure the figurine in moments if required.

Jim didn’t like the idea of putting his new treasure out of easy reach within the wall. He knelt by the crumbled plaster and reverently opened the ornate box.

The animal’s eyes flashed up at him as if in interest.

Jim lifted the ornament out carefully. “I’m going to put your box where it’s safe,” he whispered. He was a lonely child who had learned the hard way not to be caught talking to himself, but he felt his new inanimate friend would not mind or judge or tell (how could he?)

Jim hid the box dutifully and glanced back at the cracked clock which hung crookedly on his bedroom wall.

He had better check what meagre food was available and get started on preparing dinner. It was best not to provoke his father’s temper at the best of times, and certainly not when Jim felt abuzz with this secret. He turned the figurine over in his hands again. This entirely breakable secret.

“I hope you’re good with heights,” Jim mumbled, and swiftly carried the animal onto his bed. Standing, Jim nestled the figure into safety within the stained wood. The ornament’s eyes gleamed back comfortably, seeming almost amused.

“I’ve got to go; chores,” Jim blurted, and hopped down from the rickety bed. He racked his brain for images of wild animals in trees: panthers and cheetahs and lions and… and goats.

Did goats count as wild?

Jim forgot his musings as he compared the contents of the fridge and the pantry somewhat desperately. He had wasted precious minutes and would not have time to go to the nearest store, even if he could scrounge up enough change from his father’s dirty laundry and seat on the couch for that.

Jim switched his focus to tasks that might keep him relatively unharmed tonight and didn’t let himself give into his distraction until much later in the evening.

He ought really do his homework, but he put that off tonight. It would not tax him to do it in a spare moment later.

All he wanted to do was take his new treasure out from its hiding place, but he did not dare until he was certain his father was asleep. Jim amused himself for hours imagining the ornament’s origins, and even that the animal might come alive. It was such a lifelike depiction – uncannily so. And he was just a boy still.

Jim felt a thrill through his arm when he eventually reached for the creature. The house was silent and dark except for the soft glow of Jim’s nightlight. He was too old for a nightlight by far, and hardly afraid of the dark, but his desk-lamp cast a glow that could be seen around his ill-fitting doorframe that had been known to catch his father’s attention on more occasions than Jim cared to remember.

Even in the poor lighting, the figure was impressive in its colours and carving. A tiger. Jim turned it over again and again in his hands with pure wonderment and deep pleasure. He ran his thin, admiring fingertips over each intricate stripe in the animal’s coat and the way each seamless stone met the light with clever artistry. The animal seemed so alive.

“Beautiful thing… there’s no name on you,” Jim said at last, stifling a yawn. His voice was carefully low and full of soft curiosity. “I wonder where you’re from? Who you are?”

Jim stretched and eased out of his musings. “I’d better put you to bed,” he murmured, and stood quietly to return his treasure to its hiding place. It was unlikely that his father would enter his room and find Jim asleep with his likely illicit, mysterious prize in his paw, but it was entirely better not to take such a risk.

Jim slept more easily than usual, although his dreams were peculiar. He woke in the small hours of the morning unable to make sense of them.

Something compelled him to fetch down the figure from the ceiling beam. It was too dark to distinguish its markings, but it was a comforting weight in his hand. He nestled it in his grip under his thin pillow, and slept remarkably soundly thereafter.

The sun had risen when Jim awoke. He was warm, pleasantly so, and after a moment that bothered him; it was too late in the year for sunny mornings. Surely he had not slept exceptionally late? He had school-

Jim froze. At his side and taking up most of his twin bed (hanging off of the edge of it in fact) was another body: a boy. Larger than him, with captivating golden skin that seemed to radiate much more warmth than the dilapidated storage heater against the bedroom wall.

Jim wondered why he did not feel more alarmed. Something about the presence beside him was soothing, and he briefly wondered whether he was still dreaming.

The enormous boy shifted marginally in his own sleep and toppled over the edge of the mattress. He landed with peculiar, catlike grace then sat back, blinking at his surroundings.

“Good morning,” the golden boy announced, seemingly unperturbed. He gazed at Jim with unnervingly familiar eyes then asked, “What year is it?”

“Eighty-seven,” Jim said softly. “Nineteen eighty-seven.”

“And you are?” the bigger boy asked.

“Jim…” Jim said quietly. “Jim Brook. I’m eleven.”

The other boy nodded acceptingly at that, although most people didn’t believe Jim’s age. Too malnourished and tiny by far.

“I’m… on my ninth life now, I think,” the other boy mused. 

Jim sat up. “You… What?”

“My ninth life,” the boy repeated. He stretched, muscles gleaming like the coat of a big cat in the peculiarly bright sunlight, and continued, “My last one, I suppose. Better make it count.”

Jim Brook was markedly more intelligent than just about everyone he had encountered on his eleven years on planet earth. He was entirely unfamiliar with not understanding a word of what came out of another’s mouth.

The bigger boy flexed his digits and limbs, observing them thoughtfully, then glanced back at Jim. The entire lack of comprehension on Jim’s face gave him pause. “You do know what I’m for, don’t you?”

“No,” Jim admitted, hating the peculiar feeling of ignorance he now held, and swore he’d never feel such ever again.

“You took me out of the box,” the other boy said. “Where did you get the box? Did no one tell you..?”

Part of Jim wanted to say that he certainly did not take this enormous, golden boy out of any box. The concept was absurd. He could not quite bring himself to deny it though… the deep scarring across the stranger’s eye, nose, and the parallel gouges on his stomach exposed during stretching… Jim knew this boy was the figurine before.

“Someone left the box on my doorstep,” Jim said. “No note.”

The other boy’s nostrils flared slowly. “Well what good is that to anyone?” he commented, sounding peeved, and not at Jim. “How are you supposed to make a conscious decision to use me if you don’t know what I’m for?”

Jim pursed his lips. In his opinion, it didn’t take a master detective to piece together that the boy could just say so himself, but the fact that the strange boy did not do so made Jim wonder whether he really could.

Lots of magical creatures were bound by odd rules, weren’t they? A boy who was an ornament one minute and a warm, breathing person the next was probably magical.

“You didn’t give me your name,” Jim said. Names were a powerful magic, weren’t they?

The bigger boy gazed at him attentively. “You name me,” he said, sounding terse. “Every new life, a new master, a new name.”

“A new master?” Jim said. “Like a genie has a master?”

The golden boy bared his teeth. They looked sharp. “I’m not quite as multi-purpose as a djinn.” 

“You hurt things,” Jim said.

“At the very least,” the other boy said calmly.

“Are you a demon?” Jim asked. He wasn’t afraid. He was very aware that he was not afraid.

The other boy shook his head. “Cursed.” He lifted his top to expose his scarred naval. “Once upon a time, very, very, very long ago… I hunted something I should not have hunted. In her opinion.”

“Whose?”

“Kali’s,” the golden boy said dryly. “I hunted a legendary tiger named after a goddess of destruction, after the locals warned me full well not to, and the powers that be took severe umbridge.”

“The tiger got you back too, by the looks of things,” Jim said.

The other boy chuckled, pet his scars, and covered them again. “I was much, much younger and far more stupid. I’ve had plenty of lifetimes to improve my abilities.”

“Now you hunt what you’re supposed to,” Jim said.

“Yes,” the bigger boy said. “I have gotten surprisingly good at doing what I am told.”

“What happens if you don’t?” Jim asked.

The other boy grimaced. “I’m fittingly punished, in some way or another.” He looked towards the ill-repaired wall. “And usually extra time in the box.”

“So you can go back in the box?” Jim asked.

The other boy’s posture shifted to reluctance. “Of course. And transform back to your trinket, whenever you desire.”

“But you’d rather not,” Jim said.

The other boy looked at him, eyes mildly aglow. “I am bound to you and what you tell me to do. You took me out of my box.”

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Jim said bravely.

The bigger boy shrugged. “Awfully cramped, that little box.”

“So you’d rather stay out of it,” Jim said. “What should I do with you when I’m at school? My da-”

“Is part of the reason I’m here, I should imagine,” the golden boy said.

Jim looked at him carefully. “What?”

“You said yourself,” the eldritch boy said slowly, “I hunt what I’m told to. And I believe you have plenty game to offer.”

Jim considered that, ever so slowly. “And it has to be a conscious choice. I have to tell you what to hunt. Specifically.”

“At first,” the other boy said. “I get quite good at reading your desires, after a while. And once I’m fully bound to you, I must protect you, whether you ask me to or not.”

“Fully bound. Like if I give you a name?” Jim said.

The golden boy nodded. “Better make it a good one,” he said, eyes glittering. “I live a very long time, even if you pass me on.”

Something within Jim balked at the idea of giving his tiger-boy to anyone else. “Is that what happens? I’m supposed to give you away after?”

The other boy gave him a funny, intense look then shrugged. “Some people do; some don’t. Some only need me a short while; others have me longer. Some are old when they get me, and pass me down to someone they deem worth protecting.”

Jim took a deep breath. “So whoever left your box where I’d find it… They thought I was worth protecting?”

“You don’t know anyone like that?” the other boy asked quietly.

Jim pursed his lips together, bitter and confused, then shook his head.

“Good,” the golden boy said unexpectedly. Jim looked at him. “This is my last life,” the boy said. “I’m glad it won’t be entirely predictable.”

Jim nodded. He gazed out of the window at the uncanny weather then thought about his father sleeping not so very far away. “So what happens now?”

The golden boy raised a brow. He was oddly handsome, despite the horrific lack of flesh around his eye. “So you’re keeping me then?”

“Is that alright with you?” Jim asked.

The other boy stared at Jim long enough to make him uncomfortable. “You have potential,” came the eventual verdict.

Jim felt a wave of relief that he did not want to examine too closely. “Do some people who find you not have that?”

“Far too many,” the other boy sighed. “Now. My name?”

“Is there one you would like?” Jim asked. He didn’t want his own. Brook. Too much his father’s.

“That’s not how this works,” the other boy says.

Jim considered. “There’s one I always liked: Moriarty.”

“That’s your name, when you grow into it,” the boy said, making Jim’s stomach flip oddly.

Jim sat back and considered. “Your name’s got to be important,” he mused. He flicked his gaze over his tattered books of mythology and fairytales. “You went after a cat named after a goddess of death.”

“She’s almost affectionate, truth be told,” the other boy mumbled.

“A protector,” Jim said.

“Like me,” the other boy said.

Jim gazed at him in deep contemplation. The golden boy was exceptionally beautiful, despite – or perhaps because of- his outrageous injuries. He somewhat reminded Jim of the statue of Saint Sebastian at church, who was strikingly handsome regardless of the arrows skewering his muscular body.

“How do you feel about Sebastian?” Jim asked.

The other boy flinched. “What?”

Jim frowned softly. “No to Sebastian?”

The golden boy shifted his considerable weight. “That’s my name,” he said. “My real – my birth name. Sebastian. How did you..?”

Jim gave a small grin. “Magic?” he teased.

Sebastian gave him a searching look, but acquiesced all the same. “Very well.” He moved towards Jim looking suddenly predatorily hungry. “Are you ready to say it? To send me?”

“You want to hunt my father, Sebastian?” Jim asked, feeling something awaken and grow in his chest.

“As you will me,” Sebastian purred in all his dreadful beauty.

Jim leaned close to the other boy’s ear. “Go get him, tiger.”


End file.
